When People Run in Circles (Mad World)
by killertoits
Summary: They find Simon's body in the morning and everyone knows what happened: the Humdrum finally got them. This was it. "No, Professor," Baz learns over and whispers, "he did this to himself." Then he blinks and the wall is replaced with his dorm room. A.k.a the Groundhog day AU you definitely never wanted. Warnings for nonlinear narrative and death.


**A/N: warnings for creepiness and descriptions of suicide and murder**

 **...**

Baz and Simon were smoking on the roof. "You can tell me," Baz taunts, greedily wanting. "We both know you're going to jump off that roof and start it all over again."

Simon looked back at Baz and Baz didn't know what other people saw but Simon's face was covered in blood and his arm hung limply at his side. Simon opened his mouth and Baz, as if sensing what was coming leaned forward and shoved Simon off and then blinked.

Simon didn't even hit the ground.

...

Penelope and Agatha cornered Baz one day in the commons. "Where's Snow?"

"I haven't seen him," Baz replied and tried to shove past.

"Only," Penelope shouldered on determinedly, "Only, he wasn't at breakfast and he always meets us at breakfast."

"Have you tried the astronomy tower? I hear he likes it there."

Penelope paled. "Who told you about that?"

"I'm not an idiot," Baz walked away. He knew where Simon's body was - buried. He knew where it would stay. And then he blinked and he was back in his dorm, looking at a dirt covered Simon.

"Have you tried drowning yet?" Baz asked dryly, the only way could, at this point. "It might clean you up."

...

"Go away!" Baz shrieked. "Why can't you stop doing this, you complete bastard, what is wrong with you?!"

"Baz -" Simon reached a hand out and then dropped it. "I love you," he said.

"Fuck you," Baz replied. "You're just trapped in hell with me."

...

"You could, I don't know, try not killing yourself!"

Simon only looked at Baz. "Dead things long for death and I am a year and a half overdue. The utter banality, the stark dullness and obvious nature of life compels me. I am not choosing to kill myself. I simply can't help it. It's magic. It's why I'm alive."

Baz doesn't understand what Simon is saying and doesn't know whether or not to call bullshit.

...

The first time, the real first time, that Baz found Simon Snow's body was the time that Baz cried. It was the time, a year and a half ago that Simon was found dead - asleep - , still in his room. Sleeping pills, obviously, but everyone knew it was the Humdrum.

He was dead when they found him but then the Mage revived him and Baz decided he was just sleeping.

...

Baz finds the same thing a year and a half later. Blink and Simon is sleeping.

...

"You tried to kill yourself?" Baz asked, shocked.

"I know," Simon replies sadly. "It didn't work. It never works. It never let me die."

...

Everyone knew it was the Humdrum again when they found Simon's blood soaking the floor and Baz leans over and whispers, "No, Professor, he did this to himself," only once before it's swept back away in a blink.

...

Baz always remembers it. So does Simon. "What's going on? What's going on?" Baz asks and Simon never answers, just grins manically. And then kills himself. Blink. Life.

Rinse, repeat.

...

At fifty suicide attempts, Simon knows that Baz is a vampire and Baz knows that he's misjudged Simon, that everyone has.

...

The seventy-fifth time, Simon confides to Baz, "I don't think it'll let me die, this world that saved me and then screwed me. I'm too magical. The magic they brought me back with is mine now. This is my hell."

Baz raises an eyebrow and wants to say something clever like just keep trying or practice makes perfect, but what comes out is "please stop trying."

"Oh," Simon says softly, looking at his chest with an awful expression on his face. "You did it. You killed me."

Baz blinks and he's back in his dorm.

...

They have a party the hundredth time and decide to do a beheading because Simon can't stop and Baz won't ever understand that he thinks but he doesn't mind anymore.

Penelope and Agatha give them weird looks and want to be invited but Simon slaps Penelope and they both leave.

...

The handprint is there when they wake up again, still on Penelope's checks. It's reality, like the blood all over the great hall, red and sticky and attached to everybody's feet, trecked everywhere.

Only he and Simon see them, though, the little red hand prints, the little red foot prints. Simon taps Penelope's cheek and she winces and he hugs her and she squeezes him back.

"I'll be right back," Simon says.

"Leave him," Baz acknowledges. "He is going to jump off something high. Forgive him, he really does loves you Penelope."

...

The hundred and fiftieth anniversary is the one where Baz starts killing Simon. Baz doesn't mind the blood and he and Simon are friends now.

"My love, will you kill me," Simon'd asked, "cause it'd hurt less?"

When Simon speaks it sounds like it's coming from a rusty grate, a hoarse painful sound that squeaks out of shredded vocal chords.

Baz is not a good person. He sucks Simon dry.

...

In hundreds more times of living the same day and the same people Baz remembers the cold of being friendless. Wrapped around Simon like a lover or a snake he remembers that he once wasn't.

He tells Simon of the coldness of his house and the terror and the looping time servers both of them from their emotions and their reality.

...

the **twothosandsevetysomething-ish** time is the time that simon says "please stop" butbazdoesn'tlisten-bazdoesn'tlistenanymore

...

On the three thousandth try, Baz is good enough to suck on Simon all day. They learn secrets about each other. On the three thousand and third try they are on a roof and Baz learns of Simon's childhood molestation and the orphanage. He learns that Simon is not a happy person.

On the three thousand and fifth try, Baz learns about Simon's depression.

...

"I tried to kill myself last year," Simon informs Baz. "They had to use magic to bring me back. It won't go away. I belong to death but I am here."

"I love you," Baz tells him and twists his neck.

...

Simon's body stopped taking a beating, ever since Baz took over the job, but he has barely retained the look of humanity.

"You deserve better," Simon tells Baz through lips that are bloodied and cracked and caked.

...

"I want to die," is the one thing Simon will repeat, though he has started repeating "no" and "please stop".

Baz doesn't want to stop.

...

Somewhere nearing the fivethousandthtenthousandthwhoevenknows try Simon says, "I'd like to do it myself today."

...

Baz doesn't have to turn around to know what the creaking on the bed means. He doesn't have to turn around to hear Simon's hitching _heeeheee_ laughter suddenly be cut off.

And he doesn't have to see Simon's bloated hand to know he's dead. Because he isn't. Blink.

...

Baz looks, at last, up at Simon's body attached to his hand still dangling from the dorm ceiling. Blink.

...

Baz looks up at Simon's dangling body and then shrugs and goes to class. Simon will be alive soon anyway.

...

Baz goes to bed and wakes up to Simon's corps. Baz is glad Simon is coming back to him. He's glad Simon killed himself, that first time. It brought them so much. Baz only wishes that he could have been the one to kill him, this time.

Maybe that's why it was taking longer.

Baz resolved never to let Simon doing to the dying part alone again.

...

When Agatha finds him the next day, Baz mutters something about the astronomy tower. He wants to slap her but he'll wait for Simon.

...

In class, Baz realizes that they're learning something new and hastily begins taking notes for Simon.

...

Three weeks pass before Baz takes Simons body down. Maybe that will help.

...

It doesn't.

...

Baz kisses Simon's body and nudges all of his bruises and wounds. He kisses him goodnight. "I love you."

...

When the authorities arrive, it's easy to hide because Baz knows they won't get it. He hides Simon inside of him, bit by bit. Pulling off long fingernails and slipping them down, pulling apart sinew and bone that has been pulverized long ago.

...

Simon liked high things and so Baz jumped off one.

No one was left alive to blink.

When they do the autopsy, they find two hearts. Baz would have said he knew he was doing the right thing when the slimy rotting heart of Simon met his lips.

...

it's pandemonium

...

 **A/N: please tell me what you guys think, this is really my first attempt at horror**


End file.
